The Quantum Possibility Engine (audio story)

The Quantum Possibility Engine was the two hundred and forty third story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Guy Adams and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor, Sophie Aldred as Ace and Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush.

Notably, it saw the return of Josiah W. Dogbolter, an early Doctor Who Magazine comic character, who had previously appeared on audio in 2002's The Maltese Penguin.

Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor and Ace are locked up. The TARDIS is gone. Things just couldn't get worse, could they?

Of course they could. Things can always get worse — the new President of the Solar System, Josiah W Dogbolter, didn't get where he is in life without learning that. That's why he has a Quantum Possibility Engine. It's a wonderful machine, creating a wonderful Solar System. And with this wonderful device, he can bring happiness and peace to all.

Possibly.

Either that or tear the universe to shreds, it's hard to be sure which.

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

• The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
• Ace - Sophie Aldred
• Mel - Bonnie Langford
• Narvin - Seán Carlsen
• Dogbolter - Toby Longworth
• Hob / Soldier Robots / Alex - Wayne Forester
• Captain Regent of the Krasi - Jules de Jongh

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

• Mel knocks her fellow TARDIS travellers out with a sonic disruptor.
• She seeks to settle a debt with the Speravores.
• Dogbolter demands the TARDIS and the TARDIS manual. Mel later reveals that he duplicated the TARDIS and left the original intact. Mel herself learns tricks about piloting a TARDIS by reading the manual.
• Dogbolter is based on Station 14, a diplomatic station on the edge of the Solar System.
• Narvin has had his own sonic screwdriver made.
• Narvin implies that the American CIA has ties to the Celestial Intervention Agency.
• Time Lord and Speravore technology is combined to create the Quantum Possibility Engine. Specifically, Dogbolter has made use of a dimensional stabiliser, a temporal manifold, a retrofitted reality gate manipulator, and a Sperovore possibility tracker.
• The Quantum Possibility Engine does not allow for free will.
• In the new timeline, Narvin works for Kaltron, Inc., as an air oven designer. He is continually surprised by others' lack of knowledge around "simple" technology, like vortex manipulators and dimension dams.
• The Doctor works as a cleaner for Narvin, and is fired after he corrects Narvin's equations on his white board to better account for x. He also thought up a new risotto recipe, but Narvin refuses to give him a piece of paper and pen to write it down.
• In the new timeline, Ace is a police officer. She meets the Doctor, and is prepared to give him phone numbers to help him find a new job, but the strange little man informs her he doesn't have a phone.
• Alex, Ace's boyfriend, works as a newsreader. When he's late for work, they send him threatening emojis.
• Mel damages Hob by shoving him into a hot tub. Dogbolter later discovers his robot while trying to relax in it.
• The Krasi wage war on Dogbolter's Solar System. As a species, they are ruthless, but forever obsessed with public image, wanting to appear benevolent. Retroactively, Dogbolter makes a major point in his original campaign speeches about defending against the Krasi.
• Dogbolter eats bell flies.
• Dogbolter says that if it were the Crenin or the Duelph waging war, he could handle it easily.
• News broadcasts are produced automatically, through algorithms and special effects, with Alex and Dogbolter's CGI profiles on hand so they can go straight on air.
• The Doctor once played marbles with Virginia Woolf on the Strand.
• The Doctor expects to see the Lyceum Theatre, and recalls that he took Sarah Jane Smith there once to see Henry Irving's King Lear. They were kicked out after the Doctor dropped his choc-ice on one of the Earls.
• The Doctor expects to see Waterloo Bridge, and remembers fighting the Bandrils, "with that chap from The Kinks".
• Attempting to replicate human behaviour, Hob sneezes continually, annoying Dogbolter.
• Dogbolter sold off the majority of the system's military ships to the Foom, leaving only three or four left at their disposal.
• The Doctor tells Ace that Narvin has a superiority complex.
• As people evacuate major cities, Narvin, Ace and the Doctor are caught in a traffic jam.
• When he gives his broadcast address to the people of the Solar System via security camera, thanks to Alex, the Doctor is on the corner of Theobald's Road and the Grays Inn Freeway. This is also where Mels reunites with them, via the TARDIS.
• Dogbolter has the Solar System insured, and hoped for more destruction. After transmatting away, he blows up Station 14, also insured, destroying three Krasi fleet ships in the process.
• Narvin's TARDIS is a Type 400, "top of the range". Narvin loses his ship so he has to ask the Doctor to take him back in the "scrap" which he refers to the Doctor's own Type 40 TARDIS.

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Alternate cover.

• This audio was recorded on 26 and 27 March 2018 at the Moat Studios.
• Unusually, the credits for this story are delivered "in character" by Hob.
• Other than the bonus story, The Maltese Penguin, this is the first story in the Main Range to feature Josiah W. Dogbolter, a character originally from Doctor Who Magazine comics in the 1980s.

The DWM Review, DWM 532.

• An illustration by Jamie Lenman represented this story in The DWM Review of DWM 532.

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

• Narvin mentions dimension dams (TV: The Name of the Doctor) and vortex manipulators. (TV: The Empty Child, et al.)
• Emoji are again established as a major form of communication for humanity in far-future centuries. (TV: Smile)
• Bernice considered spending an evening with Woolf. (PROSE: The Highest Science)
• Upon regaining his memories, the Doctor refers to himself as a cleaner of the universe, cleaning up little messes along the way. The Tenth Doctor would later find "maintenance man of the universe" to be a rather apt self-description, along the same line of thinking. (TV: The Waters of Mars)
• Narvin calls the Doctor's TARDIS "scrap", as it is woefully out-of-date. Other Time Lords have made similar comments. (TV: The Claws of Axos, The Ribos Operation)
• The Doctor says he's never bothered to read the TARDIS manual. (TV: Vengeance on Varos) On other occasions, he's stated that he has read some of it, and strongly disagreed with it. (TV: The Pirate Planet, Amy's Choice)
• Ace is shocked that the Doctor tells Mel that friends don't keep secrets from each other or plan their own schemes. (TV: Ghost Light, The Curse of Fenric, PROSE: Nightshade, Love and War, Deceit)
• The Doctor works as a cleaner in Dogbolter's alternate timeline. (AUDIO: The Harvest)
• Mel speaks with an AI construct of the Doctor. (TV: The Power of the Doctor)

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

• Official The Quantum Possibility Engine page at bigfinish.com